The Sprint HTC Hero has been plagued by battery drain problems since it’s release. We were experimenting with the device over the weekend and became very frustrated with the battery life on our handset. After a little research, we have found that battery drain on the HERO is well documented and confirmed by Sprint.
Before we made any key changes to our handset, we were able to get only 5 hours of battery with “normal use” and the key Android metric of “awake time” was at 100%. The awake time on an the Hero is the time the handset is awake verses the time it is asleep. The higher the awake time, the greater the battery drain.
Lets get right into the root cause of the battery drain, caused by the default messaging application on the handset. In effect, the messaging app is not allowing the phone to go into a true sleep mode because of a lock on the dialer app placed by the messaging application.
The easiest fix is to download a 3rd party messaging application from the Android Market. We recommend “HandCent”. Once you install the app, you need to disable notifications from the internal messaging app. Go to: All Programs < Messages < Menu < Settings < Uncheck auto-retrieve & uncheck Notifications.
Once you have this complete, you should see your awake time drop down to 30%-60% and see an increase to 10 – 14 hours of battery life during normal use.
Try downloading the firware over the air, it fixes this problem. Its been out for weeks, where have you been?
The app is called “HandCent” not “HandSet”.
late to the party. fixed weeks ago.
I don’t think the latest firmware update fixed any battery issue. It just fixed some reliability issues.
The firmware update fixed it for me.
Ditto. The Firmware was a fix for the 100% awake time. It has helped battery life (among other small fixes).
thats good to know. Im thinking of getting the hero but am reluctant to since there is a rumor a hero 2 is coming 2010 and don’t want to sign a new 2 year contract.
I concur, the firmware update also fixed my awake time issue. That was part of it’s intention, as well as other enhancements and improvements
The firmware update fixed this. This article was helpful a month ago.
You get a new phone every 12 months with sprint so buy it and love it!
yes firmware update fixed this. i had to do a factory reset after i updated tho to get it working
I got the new firmware (1.5 right?), run Handcent, followed all the little tricks, but still run at 100%
According to Sprint Hero Support Page the current firmware is 1.5 on the initial release and after the update. What changes is the software. The software now is version 1.56.651.2. According to Sprint the updated fixed: ” improvements to your device performance with regards to camera picture quality, SMS, Bluetooth and to the dialer application. Also, mute and speakerphone buttons have been added to the talk screen.”
Our Hero was running the latest update and was reformatted several times to try and fix the problem. The only cure we found was installing HandCent as the default messaging app.
My HTC Hero – battery life is 2 days. My Awake Time is under 10% – I get email and text messages all day long. So, I have no issue with battery life. It is better than the Palm Pre I had.
Rick – I’m curious…Do you take a lot of calls on your hero?? How many email accounts do you have??
Mike
No problem with mine. Got it on Dec 1st. Firmware had already been updated. I have multiple email addresses set up on the phone and send/recive lots of text messages. No battery problem at all. I use the SMS app that came with the phone.
seriously? should just remove this whole article. old news. everyone is past it.
Well from what it looks like, some have problems and others don’t. So for those who Say that the problem is fixed then good but for those that are still having issues then then this article hits the spot.
While the update did fix this for some. It did not for me. The Handcent solution also only works for a select number of users. I have found that there are many things causing the 100% awake time issue, sms, wifi, bluetooth. Any one of these locking the phone into an awake mode. I’m on my 4th Hero, the first three had this issue (all updated to latest firmware), my fourth sleeps like a baby.
I firmware update fixed the wake lock issue with the messaging app. There are still some Hero’s that are experiencing wake lock after the fix. This issue that survived the firmware update appears to be unrelated to the messaging app problem.
I have followed this site for many years now and have greatly enjoyed the past coverage that it has provided. However, lately it has not been up to par in relation to past performance… “In my eyes only”. For great HERO and ERIS info check out ppcgeeks. The users there work very hard to solve isues that they deal with on a daily basis. I have also seen a lot of great info on XDA. This update has been out for weeks and fixed my 100% issue allowing me to remove HandCent. Installing HandCent or any other 3rd party messaging application was presented to HERO users through forums within a couple days of the phone being released. This is all information that I would have expected phonenews.com to be on top of.. If you really want a change, root your phone..
The article is correct. I am absolutely experiencing battery drain after installing the firmware update. I read the firmware was supposed to fix the battery drain, but it did not for me. I did find the other updates from the firmware very useful, esp speaker phone update. I love the Hero. Best phone I’ve ever owned. Does have some minor issues, but every smart phone I ever owned has had some minor issues w/ them. I think they are just so complex. Smart phones do well on the add on features, but mess up the phone. My biggest complaint with the Hero is the radio is week. I get a lot of dropped calls with the phone. I live in the far suburbs so my signal is already weak. Other Sprint phones I’ve owned were better w/ able to handle the weak signal. I own the Airave and still get lots of dropped calls. I don’t talk on the phone a lot, so not a major concern for me. In my work location (stronger signal), phone works fine, no dropped calls.
This is stupid-old. ugh.
5 hours seems the norm for all of these new touch screen devices. My Pre lasts about the same.
where u get the firmware from?
My Sprint Hero continues to have a very short battery life even after updating the firmware, disabling the IM that came with the phone and installing Handscent, turning off WiFi, GPS and Mobile Network. Without using the phone, and having all these items off, the battery drains about 10% in about 1.5 hours. It’s very frustrating as there are so many great features to this phone, but it has to be constantly plugged so it’s not quite mobile.
I had horrible battery problems right after I got my Hero towards the end of last year, and this fixed it. After a while, it began acting up again, and I’ve been having problems with the phone not sleeping for a few months. I decided to start systematically removing apps until I found the culprit — Handcent!!! Because that’s the app that the folks at HTC explicitly told me to use to fix the battery life issue, it didn’t even occur to me that it could be causing the problem, but it was. Crazy, crazy stuff.
toasty, so are you saying that Handcent was draining your battery? Did you remove it and it helped?
hola